


I see a mountain in my way

by ysengrin



Series: ski fic [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Jon Snow POV, M/M, Mountains, Skiing, Winter Sports, a tiny companion piece set between chapters 1 and 9 of We're not the kissing kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25091164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ysengrin/pseuds/ysengrin
Summary: Jon’s never been very good at dealing with provocation. Try as he might, he always ends up falling in the same traps, and then as he thinks he’s managed to strike a blow, he realizes he’s been playing into Theon’s hand all along.
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Jon Snow
Series: ski fic [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817245
Comments: 12
Kudos: 49





	I see a mountain in my way

Jon sighs. Acutely aware of the childishness of the gesture, he flips his phone over on the desk, hiding the screen, and turns towards the computer. Robb's agenda indicates a meeting with Tyrion Lannister at 11, probably about next year's publicity campaign. Jon doubts that Robb will attend the meeting, given the state in which he'd left him last night. Robb had been so wasted that he couldn’t even stand without the help of Jeyne. Their accountant had spent the first half of the evening dancing with Robb, and the second holding his head as he puked.

Thus, Jon wasn’t in the least bit surprised when he arrived at work two hours ago to find that Robb had failed to make the interview they'd scheduled with Petyr Baelish.

Jon had to receive the journalist alone. He intends to make Robb pay for that at some point in the near future; Baelish is a notorious scumbag. Jon expects every one of the answers he gave him to appear twisted on the page: last time, he'd told the guy that he was glad to be working with Robb and Baelish had managed to write something about "the close, one might even say, incestuous bond between Stark and Snow." When Jon had gone to see Theon and ask if they could sue the _Mocking Mag_ for libel, Theon had said no, with no small amount of glee. Apparently the magazine would sell better that way, and besides everyone knew Baelish was a liar. "Not worth the time and trouble, not worth the money," Theon had said as he walked off. Jon never seems to get more than five seconds of his attention, despite the fact that Theon lives ten minutes away from the office on foot and holds most of his meetings here and in restaurants in the town centre. Then again it's always been like this. Theon has a knack for getting people to come to him, rather than the other way round.

Jon could have insisted on video calls, weekly check-ups. Instead, he flies down on a regular basis to be in the office in person. He's managed to fit a couple days in the office in his training schedule, and he only skips them when he has a big competition coming up.

And even then. He HAS a race coming up. And still he's here, checking Robb's schedule to see if he can be of use, because contrary to Theon, he's terrible at letting things come to him. He has to feel involved at all times.

"Hi, Mya."

"Jon! How did it go with Baelish?"

That's an issue too – authority. He insisted everyone in the office call him by his first name, and somehow, with some of his subordinates, this has translated into a complete disregard for the chain of command. Robb's secretary always treats Jon as if he was an endearing little brother, and he hasn't yet found it in himself to contradict her.

"As well as could be expected," he says. "Hey, didn't Robb have a meeting with the Lannisters?"

"Yes. Theon is supposed to replace him."

"Theon," Jon repeats. "The last time I was in a room with them both, Tyrion threw a glass of wine in his face."

"Well, I'm not the one who appointed Theon Head of Communications," Mya says. "Take that up with the CEO. That would be you."

"Yeah, yeah," Jon says, because he's not ten and he can't just say, _Th_ _at was Robb, not me, we're both in charge of this firm, it's Stark & Snow, not Snow Solo, remember?"_

Once he's hung up, he finds Theon's name in his contacts. As the chat informs him, the last time they exchanged messages was three months ago, and it went like this:

It doesn’t take a big effort to remember that meeting. Theon’s noxious grin as he spread his hands another inch, with arched eyebrows as if to say, _That big, really?_

Jon’s never been very good at dealing with provocation. Try as he might, he always ends up falling in the same traps, and then as he thinks he’s managed to strike a blow, he realizes he’s been playing into Theon’s hand all along.

The first time Jon reached the finish line of the Torch Race, his father was there to cheer him on.

Jon had enjoyed a full ten seconds of unmitigated joy before nature reasserted its rights and he began to wonder. Did Ned expect Robb to pass the line first, and should Jon have waited for Robb, instead of rushing ahead? Then they’d have finished at the same time. Ned would have been pleased. Instead, Jon had left Robb behind and Robb hadn't even made the top ten. Ned had hugged Jon with an arm around his shoulders and said, “I’m proud of you, boy.”

Not _son,_ “boy.”

And every year Jon signs up for the Torch, like it’s a tribute or something. At some point during the race, he always ends up thinking about Ned, and whether he’d be here if he were still alive, and whether he’d say it again. The last couple years, he’s been thinking about Robb a lot, too. Robb who nearly lost the use of his legs while Jon was busy winning a gold medal no one gave a fuck about.

Even for Jon it’s never been about winning. Robb thought skiing was cool, so Jon took up skiing too. And then it turned out he liked it.

This time when he slides across the finish line, he recognizes some of his friends, Tormund’s bushy beard and Val’s untameable mane of blond hair and Davos standing at some distance behind the group like maybe the walls will let him reincarnate into a wooden pillar. They’re here for the King, too, not just for Jon. Mance swept past him some three miles away from the end and Jon didn’t find it in himself to overtake him again. When he enters the barn where they’ve put up the podium, Mance is already being hugged by Val, and Jon wonders if he should join them. He could let Tormund crush his ribs and Davos give him that fatherly smile, the one that nearly makes him forget his fatherlessness.

Suddenly he wishes he weren’t here but in Cerwyn. When they’d just started the firm and they had to work late, sometimes it would grow dark outside and he’d crack open one of the crates from Arya’s brewery and they’d have a beer while having a look at the prototypes, Robb and Theon and him. Robb would talk and talk. Jon and Theon would look on with avid eyes, because feverish as he may seem, this Robb was the closest they ever got to pre-accident Robb. Robb the athlete and the big-hearted dreamer.

“Take me home,” Robb would tell Theon, and Theon would grab their coats and Jon would watch them leave through the window and think, maybe we’ll make it after all.

This strange nostalgia will pass, he knows, it’s always the same, he’s anxious to leave and when he gets where he wanted to be he starts missing the place he’s left. In the morning he’ll go skiing with Tormund and the others and it’ll be… It’ll be…

A hand touches his elbow and he turns, expecting one of the organizers, maybe one of his friends – anyone but Theon Greyjoy, red-faced with the cold, his hat pulled low over his ears. Jon would raise his eyebrows and neutralize his tone, except that Theon’s caught him by surprise, and all he can do is smile. If he dared – if Theon weren’t Theon, if he weren’t himself – he’d pull him forward by the front of his coat and he’d kiss him right here, in front of everyone. Is it so immature, that he wants all these people to see that Theon wants him? Handsome Theon with the smile like a ticking bomb. Theon who used to pretend he didn’t exist, and who will now climb mountains in the middle of the night – who will forget himself to the point of calling Jon by his name, instead of some colourful insult.

“I’ll be damned,” he says.

Theon is still Theon, though – what would the appeal be, otherwise – and so he says, “I have it on good authority that you will. Second place, Snow, seriously?”

The medal around Jon’s neck suddenly weighs a ton. He removes it.

“I didn’t mean it, you know I didn’t mean it,” Theon says, fingers grasping for air. It might be the first time in his life that Jon’s seen him look openly remorseful.

“I have to go change,” he says, tossing him the medal.

Jon exchanges a few words with the other skiers as he removes his suit. He accepts drunken-sounding congratulations from very tired men, and he does his best to offer congratulations in return. When he finally emerges from the changing rooms, all he wants is a bed, preferably with Theon in it. He’s had time to think about it the past couple nights, what sleeping with Theon would be like, though his imagination hasn’t been quite up to the task. They’ve shared a bed on occasion as children, especially on New Year’s Eve when Robb's aunts and uncles came over. Whenever Jon tries to picture himself in bed with Theon he comes back to these memories of the cold attic in Winterfell, Theon’s leg thrown over his because Theon had a tendency to sleep like a disarticulated spider, his arms and legs akimbo. Jon would spend the night pushing him away with increasing desperation. One year, he’d shoved him so hard Theon had rolled on the floor, and after that they brought up a mattress for Jon, and Theon kept the bed. Remembering it now, it makes him wonder what he was thinking, inviting Theon up here. As he’s about to go, Tormund catches up with him.

“Well done,” he says.

Jon’s ribs get crushed. He endures it with a valiant smile.

“We’re using Stannis’s chopper to get on top of Hoarfrost at five,” Tormund says. “You coming along?”

“No. I’ve got my own plans. You guys have fun, though.”

“Do your plans have anything to do with Greyjoy?” Tormund asks.

“I was thinking we might do the Greyguard. If I’m in shape. I need to get some sleep, so… If you don’t mind, I’ll go catch the shuttle.”

“Hmmmm,” Tormund says. “Remember when we met and you’d just done the Shadow Tower with your brother, and you told me to let you know the next time you did something stupid, like throwing yourself at a big wall of rotten ice?”

Jon frowns. “Yes?”

Tormund’s hand falls upon his shoulder like the hammer on the anvil.

“This is it, my friend. This is your wall of rotten ice. I’m warning you, as you asked.”

“The Greyguard isn’t that dangerous, this early in the season,” Jon argues. It might be that he’s being wilfully obtuse.

“I didn’t mean the fucking Greyguard,” Tormund says. “I meant the lying little fucker.”

“Thank you for the warning.”

“But you’re not going to listen.”

“I never said I would,” Jon shrugs. “I said, let me know. Now I know. And don’t repeat any of that in front of him. He’s already full of himself. He doesn’t need to know we’ve compared him to a bloody mountain.”


End file.
